Nissin drew Naomi Osaka with lighter skin in a manga ad — and was accused of whitewashing

In January 2019, Nissin Foods, the maker of Cup Noodle, released a manga-style advertisement featuring two of Japan's tennis stars, Naomi Osaka and Kei Nishikori, drawn by the creator of a famous tennis comic. Osaka, who is mixed-race, was depicted with noticeably paler skin and more European features than she has in real life. Viewers accused the company of 'whitewashing' her.

The criticism spread quickly online, with one user asking the artist why the drawing 'changed the skin colour to something that deviates from the real person so much.' The complaint struck a nerve because Osaka's mixed Japanese and Haitian heritage was central to her public story; lightening her skin read as an erasure of exactly what made her distinctive. She was, at the time, the reigning US Open champion and one of the most visible athletes in Japan.

Nissin apologised. 'There is no intention of whitewashing,' a spokesperson said, but the company accepted that it 'was not sensitive enough' and promised to 'pay more attention to diversity issues in the future.' The ad was withdrawn. Osaka herself was measured about the episode; the larger reaction was online, where the drawing became a shorthand for how global brands still default to lighter skin when they stylise non-white faces.